Never Again
by Marwana
Summary: When Loki was thrown into the deepest pits of the dungeons as punishment for his crimes against Asgard and the Earth he vowed one thing: Never again would he be seen as weak. Not even if his magic was to be taken away by the Avengers during a battle.


_This is just a little one-shot that kept running around in my head._

_**Warnings**: language, violence_

_**Disclaimer**: I do not own the rights to the Avengers._

_Enjoy!_

* * *

Tony shot towards the crazed God of Mischief as fast as he could in an attempt to turn his attention away from Captain America who had had the misfortune of losing his shield and running straight into one of Loki's clones.

Thunder boomed above them as Thor threw lightning towards the clones. Some flashed out of sight as soon as they were hit while others managed to duck in time.  
Natasha and Clint – or Black Widow and Hawkeye as they were on duty – were standing back to back as they fought the clones, Natasha with guns and bullets and Clint with bow and arrows.  
Bruce on the other hand was ripping out entire trees to bat away the clones.

But clones kept appearing left and right and Loki – at least, he hoped that he had the real Loki in sight – didn't appear to be tiring. Unlike some of them as Steve, Natasha and Clint started to look worse for the wear and his suit had started to malfunction every once in a while.

The chaos being had somehow managed to escape from wherever he had been held and he had made his way back to Earth. They had found him two days after his escape dressed in inconspicuous _normal_ clothing and they had attacked the somewhat weak looking god on sight.  
But weak looking did _not_ mean that said escapee was truly weak and the man – debatable in his opinion – was fighting back with a vengeance. He had somehow managed to call his armour to him and was once again fully dressed like old Reindeer Game.  
He had called forth a large amount of duplicates – clones – and a fight using spells, thunder, guns, arrows, blasts and hand-to-hand combat had started.

Tony swerved around a green flash of light before he was forced to let himself drop a few feet to avoid a chunk of a _building_ thrown towards Loki courtesy of the Hulk.  
After what felt like performing an air ballet courtesy of Loki's and his dublicates' spells he finally reached Steve's shield and threw it towards the still evading soldier with a shouted, "Catch!".  
Steve turned around, caught the shield and turned back in time to use his trademark shield to send a green flash back towards one of the clones which exploded out of existence when hit.

"Who has the collar?" Thor boomed loudly above the sounds of thunder and battle.  
"Stark has it!" Steve shouted in reply before Tony could open his mouth.  
Not that he would have been capable of answering as he had been jumped as soon as he had picked up the shield and was still dealing with the annoying clones. He had though that flying out of ranch would have been enough but apparently Loki had picked up some new skills somewhere.  
Who knew that Loki had learned to fly?

"Place it around Loki's neck!" Thor shouted towards him.  
"Will do," Tony answered in reply, though he doubted that Thor had heard him as he was not capable of using thunder to be heard.

He quickly took a sharp turn to the left, barely missed hitting the sharp corner of one of the skyscrapers – some of the clones weren't as lucky and hit the corner while others were hit by spells of their own kind – and turned around to blast the last of the clones after him to smithereens.  
As soon as he was sure that there were no more clones after him he flew towards the spot he had last seen the God of Evil.  
Luckily for him it seemed as if the crazed being was still on the same spot playing the stationary fighter – which was plain weird as the last time Loki had actually moved around.

Tony approached him carefully, mindful of the spells thrown his way. It took him a while but he finally managed to get into the man's – still debatable in his mind – space. He grabbed him by the collar of his leather armour with one hand and snapped the collar in place with the other.  
He released the being, only for the man to disappear and the collar to fall on the ground.

"Damn it," Tony cursed loudly before he shouted, "Jarvis, any clue where the real Loki is?"  
"Try the roof, sir," Jarvis said politely as he scanned his surroundings.  
"Which one of the roofs? And which one of the Loki clones?" Tony demanded to know as he picked up the collar and took off. He flew until he hang in mid-air and waited for Jarvis' answer.  
"The building to your left, sir," Jarvis said and Tony swerved until he could watch its roof, "there is only one Loki there and his readings are slightly different from what I receive of the duplicates."  
"Good, "Tony said before he made his way over towards the mentioned roof, "let's see if we can collar this dog."  
He landed lightly before he forced the suit to fall apart in pieces, though he did keep the hand and underarm pieces as protection.

He softly made his way over towards the sorcerer, who had his back turned towards him. Even from the distance he noticed the light sheen of sweat on the man's body – or the parts he could see – and he hoped that the evident exhaustion would be enough to stop his attempt to sneak up on the god from being noticed.  
He continued to make his way over towards the god and – though it did take longer than he liked – it wasn't long before he stood right behind the man.  
He quickly raised the collar and jumped forward. He placed the collar around the being's neck and snapped it shut.

The god in front of him whirled around with a sharp snarl on his face and his green eyes – weren't his eyes blue the last time he had seen him? – wide and crazed. He stumbled slightly before he fell down on his knees with a muffled, pained groan.  
A change could be felt almost immediately. The clones disappeared, the spells fizzled out of existence and the fighting stopped.

Loki groaned again as he tried to stand but Tony raised his hand and fired a blast towards the god. The blast hit him straight on and the god slumped forward, his front smoking.  
He was still smoking lightly as he landed face down and his face – from what he could see – had paled drastically but Tony was sure that the Lie-smith would survive.  
He quickly checked to make sure that Loki was truly down before he turned back around in time to see Thor arrive on the roof.

"Good job!" the God of Thunder said boisterous as he walked towards him and slapped him enthusiastically on his shoulder.  
The others arrived not long after, first the Hulk who growled lowly at the defeated god. Natasha and Clint were next and both ignored the downed being in favour of calling SHIELD and making sure that everyone was alright.  
The last one to arrive was Steve.

"Right, now that _that_ is taken care of," Tony said as soon as the captain appeared, "can we go?"  
"We need to ship him off to SHIELD HQ first," Steve pointed out.  
Tony sighed, "oh, alright."  
He called the rest of his suit to him until he was once again fully dressed in his armour – though he left his vizier open – before he made his way over towards the downed sorcerer.  
"Where do you need him?" he asked as soon as he had a grip on the man's cape.

Natasha was about to answer when Thor suddenly shouted out, "watch out!"  
Tony dropped Loki and turned around towards the resident Thunderer, but something hard hit him from behind before he could fully turn around or comprehend what was happening and he felt himself fly forward and tip of the roof.

Luckily he managed to get his repulsors underneath him and he flew back onto the roof in time to see Loki rise from where he had lain not seconds before. He landed next to the others and was prepared to blast him down but Bruce – or rather the Hulk – charged forward and smashed into Loki.

They went straight through the roof and disappeared from their sight.  
Before the others could go after them a pained roar sounded and they could see the Hulk being thrown out of the building all together.  
"What is happening?" Steve demanded to know and he whirled towards Thor, "you said that the collar would take his magic away!"  
"I don't know," Thor said just as flabbergasted as he made his way over towards the hole in the roof in an attempt to find the one he called brother, "Loki is kept alive by his magic. The collar should have bound his magic and it should have taken away his strength."

"Oh, it did," a guttural but smooth voice drawled from behind them and they shared looks before the turned around, their weapons raised towards the place the voice had sounded from.  
But it wasn't Loki that greeted them, or rather not the Loki they were used to seeing. The being in front of them wasn't taller than before but he somehow seemed to be. The other noticeable differences were the glowing red eyes, the sharp teeth, the harsh lines on his face and the fact that _he was blue_.  
He was still wearing his armour but his helm and his staff had disappeared.

"But you forgot one thing," Loki continued as his hands started to glow a light blue, "I never used all of my magic and a large percentage of the part I did use was always – mostly unknowingly – used to hide away the fact that I'm not Æsir by birth."  
"Bu-," was all Thor managed to say before Loki continued.

"After the last _debacle_ I decided that I would never be weak again," Loki told them as he studied his glowing hands intently, "after the Oath-Breaker bound my magic and threw me in a cell deep in the dungeons of Valaskjalf I realised something. Dungeons are supposed to be the coldest place in any building but I didn't feel it. It was in these dungeons that I decided that I might as well use the form I was born with."  
He bared his teeth in a smirk filled with teeth.

"I'll never be helpless again," he murmured before he exploded in action, "never again."

* * *

_I hope you liked this story. Some of the names are taken from the Norse Myths.  
Reviews are much appreciated._

_~Marwana_


End file.
